


An Ending Fitting for the Start

by PollyPocalypse



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (Crangst), Angst, Bathos, Crack, Crack But Sad, Crack and Angst, M/M, Quote: You go too fast for me Crowley (Good Omens), Sixties Scene, The Broken Car Door, sod's law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PollyPocalypse/pseuds/PollyPocalypse
Summary: What if the infamous faulty Bentley door hadn't been worked around with some clever camera angles?Or: A Weighty Goodbye Scene, The Way it Might Play Out In Real Life.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 53





	An Ending Fitting for the Start

"I work in Soho. I hear things. I hear that you're setting up a...caper. To rob a church."  


Ah. Right.  


He ought to have expected that, really.  


It wasn't that he'd been going out of his way to keep the information from Aziraphale - it was always going to be a risk, setting up his heist in the same part of town the angel worked in, and besides, it wasn't as if he'd made any kind of promise _not_ to acquire holy water one way or another. The only thing that had really been established was that Aziraphale wasn't going to be involved. He was all ready to defensively point this out. But here Aziraphale was now, handing over a tartan flask with the utmost care and looking miserable about it.  


"Don't go unscrewing the cap," he said, in a painfully resolute tone.  
"The real thing?"  
"The holiest."  
"After everything you said?"  
A stiff nod of acknowledgement. 

Crowley suddenly felt rather awful. And not in the fun "I have performed my demonic duties with dedication and enthusiasm” sort of way. More in a thoroughly nasty, leaden "I have made a loved one sad" sort of way.  


He didn't like it, not one bit. And he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.  


A rather terrifying realisation washed over Crowley in that moment. Not that he was in love with Aziraphale - he'd worked that one out centuries ago, had plenty of time to get comfortable with the knowledge.  


But it only really, fully occurred to him now that he truly would do anything. Not just giving old Shakespeare a leg up with his plays or saving a bag of dusty books from an explosion. Not just getting him crepes and oysters and Speyside single malt. He'd renounce hell in a flash - and take whatever dire consequences came with it - if Aziraphale outright asked him to. No hesitation on that score.  


"Should I say thank you?" ( _Let me do **that** , if nothing else._)  
"Better not." And there it was. Aziraphale was never going to ask him. Not if he wasn't even allowed to do the bare minimum. 

He was so close now. Crowley could _smell_ him from here. It would hardly be anything to lean over and close the gap between them.  
He wouldn't, of course. Not until Aziraphale made it completely clear that he wanted him to, which wasn't likely to happen any time this century.  
"Can I drop you anywhere?" he asked instead, still desperately holding out hope, despite everything.  
"No, thank you." And that was that.  
"Don't look so disappointed," Aziraphale wheedled. "Maybe someday we could... I don't know. Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz."  
Crowley wasn't sure what to make of that. Lovely sentiment, certainly, but the vagueness of _maybe someday_ didn't foster a great deal of hope. It wasn't as if their respective head offices were going anywhere anytime soon, after all.  


He said "Look, I'll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go." and tried to pack as much implicit meaning into it as possible. Sentiments along the lines of _I love you_ and _Anything you want, I'll give it to you_ and _This isn't how I want to part ways_ and _I love you_ and _Please stop doing that sad face_ and perhaps a little redundantly, _I love you. You do know that you're loved, right? You're very loved. Infinitely loved. It's very important that you have that information._  


"You go too fast for me, Crowley."  


There was a moment of loaded silence as the full impact of the words sunk in. Right, then. So that's how things were. Nothing to be done. Too much to hope for that he was, in fact, just talking about Crowley’s driving.  


Crowley watched morosely as Aziraphale reached for the door handle.  
And tried to open the door.  
And tried to open it again.  
And gave it a more hefty shove, making Crowley wince.  
And rattled the doorknob a couple more times, apparently more for emphasis than out of the hope that it would actually achieve anything.  
"It's stuck," said Aziraphale, rather unnecessarily.  
"It doesn't get stuck."  
"Well, it quite clearly _does_ , and it's done it now."  
"It's always worked before. Runs like a dream, ever since I bought it."  
"And when was the last time anyone got out on the passenger side?"  
Crowley opened his mouth. And closed it again.  
And then said "Are you suggesting I've had a faulty door all this time and just haven't noticed?"  
"It would certainly appear that way, wouldn't it?" Aziraphale gave the doorknob another half-hearted jiggle, to no avail.  
"Nah. You must be doing it wrong."  
"I know how to open a car door, Crowley!"  
"Look, here..." Crowley attempted to lean over Aziraphale (and Lucifer knew, that wasn't painfully awkward _at all_ ) and tried to open the door himself. It wouldn't budge.  


Crowley experienced a sudden rush of guilt over the thought that his beautiful car had been _hurt_ and he hadn't noticed for who knew how long. (Christ, couldn't he keep _anyone_ he loved happy?) It was almost (almost!) enough to distract him from the abject misery and humiliation of this entire experience.  


"I'll have to get out your side." Aziraphale leaned over, making a sudden movement that appeared for all the world as if he intended to physically climb over Crowley. In the process their faces were brought excruciatingly close together.  
There was a horribly long, weighty pause.  


Crowley swallowed. "I'll. I'll get out." he stepped out of his own door, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he stood around on the pavement, wilfully staring at the _First Wombat in Space_ headlines plastered in the windows and the giggling couples stumbling out of pubs and anything at all except for Aziraphale wriggling over onto the driver's seat and out of the car.  


He only allowed himself to turn his gaze back once the car door shut.  


Aziraphale cleared his throat, gazing steadfastly at the pavement, and brushed a piece of imaginary lint off the sleeve of his jacket. "Thank you."  


Crowley nodded, suddenly not trusting himself to speak around the lump that had risen in his throat.  
There was another dreadful pause as the two of them stood together on the pavement, the cold night breeze whipping through their clothes and the distance between them suddenly seeming insurmountable.  


Aziraphale darted forward without warning and kissed Crowley's cheek. It was over in a split second and so light as to be barely there at all, and yet Crowley felt the impact of it through every inch of his corporeal body (and surely bodies weren't supposed to _do_ things like that, something that small shouldn't pierce through him like an inexplicably lovely electric shock, he must have been issued a defective one by head office, typical of the bastards.)  


"Sorry," said Aziraphale, before turning and trotting off into the night. He didn't look back.  


Crowley watched him until he was out of sight. Then he allowed himself to get back into the car and sit for a while, suddenly feeling very cold. The tartan flask sat in the footwell where he had left it. After some thought, he very carefully placed it in the glove compartment.  


Crowley spent a moment of allowing the full, messy ensemble of emotions brought up by the exchange to wash over him. Sadness and confusion had a little internal battle, with perhaps the tiniest glimmer of hope thrown into the mix. All so very untidy. So _un-demonic_. 

It was at this point that it occurred to him that they could have miracled the door open at any time.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the lyrics of the Libertines song "Can't Stand Me Now," which also contains the line "I'll take you anywhere you wanna go" and as a result gets stuck in my head every time I rewatch this scene.
> 
> For the record, in my personal headcanon it would be completely on-brand that a) The Bentley, in sympathy, wouldn’t want to let Aziraphale go and b) The possibility of this wouldn’t occur to either of them.


End file.
